Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the cost to acute hospital trusts in England and Wales of liability insurance in maternity units.

The total amount of contributions collected across England by the NHS Litigation Authority to date this financial year from acute hospital trusts under the Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts (CNST) in respect of maternity units, is £525,192,156. Wales has their own risk pooling system managed separately.

Cases that remain open at 31 March 2016 will be funded from future financial contributions from members of the CNST. In this sense the CNST is distinct from an ‘insurance product’ which would be likely to cover all claims notified in the specified period of cover, regardless of when they were settled and paid.